Anyone use backup Exec 12.5 for Windows Servers?

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AMD_Gamer

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My work has Backup Exec 12.5 for Windows Server and I am planning to use this to backup a bunch of Virtual Machines running on our new ESXi hosts. Right now we will be using a Buffalo TerraStation Pro for the backups. I am a bit overwhelmed with the program and the manual is almost 1800 pages. I had no idea the program was this in-depth:eek:

Anyone here familiar with it?
 
I used it "Back in the day". The question is, how are you going to back up these machines? Are you planning on installing the agent on the VMs? Or take snap shots and crap the vmdk?
 
XOR != OR said:
I used it "Back in the day". The question is, how are you going to back up these machines? Are you planning on installing the agent on the VMs? Or take snap shots and crap the vmdk?
Click to expand...

Agents on the VM's is the best method right?
 
Depends on what you have licensed. BE12.5 has agents that can do whole VM backups using the VCB proxy, you just have to pay for them. You probably just have the windows agent, maybe SQL or Exchange agent, too. Basically you have to push install the windows agent to the VM and then you can select the whole server or individual files on the drives to be backed up. There are a bunch of wizards in BE that will walk you through doing everything. I say just take a stab at it, play around, consult the manual as needed. It's not really that difficult of a program to use.
 
AMD_Gamer said:
Agents on the VM's is the best method right?
Click to expand...
I'm partial to backing up the vmdks myself. Easier to do "bare metal" restores.

Agents would make it easier to restore individual files in a machine, though. Given my work loads, I try to minimize the amount of time I spend fussing with individual files, so I usually use the first method myself.

I'd say it's dependent on work loads and expected recovery times.
 
Very familiar with it - we use it to back up VMs on ESX and ESXi hosts (3.5 and 4.1). That said, we will soon be updating to 2010, once the 3.5U5 cluster is completely gone.

BE is dead simple to use for this. Full VM backups are crazy fast, agentless, and painless to restore. But there is a caveat...

File level restores. Unless you want to run an agent in each guest (and negate all benefits of VCB), you'll have to do your own grunt work for the file level restores. What does that mean? Restore the entire vmdk to a temp location, mount it as a drive on the VCB proxy, and then copy the files to where you need them. I've only had to do it a few times, and it isn't hard, but you can't just choose a file in BE and restore it. And we're talking NTFS only here. To backup our novell server, we still use an agent (for file level, plus full VM in case of complete failure).

My understanding is that this changes with 2010. Using the vStorage APIs, you get file level restores and dedupe which is huge. That means you can finally do differential backups.

The only other caveat is price. We had to pay $2600/host. For what our entire VMware infrastructure cost, it was easy to justify. But on its own it seems damn expensive.
 
Captain Colonoscopy said:
Depends on what you have licensed. BE12.5 has agents that can do whole VM backups using the VCB proxy, you just have to pay for them. You probably just have the windows agent, maybe SQL or Exchange agent, too. Basically you have to push install the windows agent to the VM and then you can select the whole server or individual files on the drives to be backed up. There are a bunch of wizards in BE that will walk you through doing everything. I say just take a stab at it, play around, consult the manual as needed. It's not really that difficult of a program to use.
Click to expand...

Agree, we use it and its pretty damn easy. We use just the regular client backing up files shares, system states, and active directory. We use backup to disk for critical files that need to be backed up every hour and use backup to tape nightly and on weekends for larger jobs. Also make sure you always have an offsite backup.
 
I use it. We have legacy BE licenses for the VMs themselves (agent/exchange/sql) and back up that way on a daily basis. On the weekends I use the VMware Virtual Management Assistant to dump all non application vmdks to an NFS store, then I include that NFS store as part of my full weekly backup. I didn't want to pay money for the BE vcb licensing.
 
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